VOCALOID4 Library CYBER SONGMAN release information

Today, We announced that is has begun to market “VOCALOID4 Library CYBER SONGMAN”, a new PC-based software that can create natural singing voices in authentic English pronounciations.
This new software can be downloaded, beginning today, from this website.

CYBER SONGMAN was developed for wide global use, and it is offered for sale as a product that can be downloaded even from outside Japan.
The price is JPY10,000(before tax), and sales began today on the dedicated VOCALOID Official Shop site.

Can be used in any musical genre and creates cyber voices that sing with clear, crisp, and natural English pronounciations.

CYBER SONGMAN was developed with the aim of synthesizing male voices singing in standard English with VOCALOID4. Its singing voices give clean and convincing renditions of all musical genres, featuring clear low tones, free and easy mid-range sounds, and crisp high tones.

Recommended audio range: A1 to A3Recommended tempo: 70 to 190 BPM

Gruff and harsher voice expressions can be used

CYBER SONGMAN brings out the full capabilities of the new Growl function that is included in VOCALOID4. This is used with rock, soul, blues, and certain other musical genres, and it can be used to bring out a wide range of musical expressions, such as a gruff and harsher tone.

[Sample] Singing Voice with Growl Function.

Used with VOCALOID4 Editor for Cubase, CYBER SONGMAN runs on Windows and Mac

CYBER SONGMAN is compatible with the VOCALOID4 Editor for Cubase editing software, which incorporates the functions of VOCALOID in the Cubase DAW software from Steinberg. Using VOCALOID4 Editor for Cubase with Steinberg’s Cubase 7 Series or Cubase 8 Series, users can have access to a wide range of editing functions in Cubase in either Windows or Mac environments to add various special effects to singing voices.

American English pronunciation also available

By drawing on the skills of native speakers with U.S. backgrounds, the software creates authentic and natural American English pronounciations. Usually in VOCALOID, the singing voices use pronounciations and symbols close to British English, but with this new product users can create voices that sing in natural American English by setting the CYBER SONGMAN dedicated user dictionary file that comes with this product in VOCALOID4 Editor or VOCALOID4 Editor for Cubase.

[Sample] Before：Without User Dictionary / After：Use User Dictionary

Product Details

CYBER SONGMAN was developed for wide global use, and it is offered for sale as a product that can be downloaded even from outside Japan.
The price is JPY10,000(before tax), and sales began today on the dedicated VOCALOID Official Shop site.

Product Name

VOCALOID4 Library CYBER SONGMAN

No.

CYBERSONGMAN

Price

JPY 10,000（before tax）

Release Date

31st Oct. 2016

* This product is downloadable software.
* This product cannot be used on a stand-alone basis and must be used with VOCALOID4 Editor or VOCALOID4 Editor for Cubase and the Cubase Series.
The OS, CPU, necessary memory and other specifications will depend on the combination of software used. For further details on the operating environment, please refer to the following product page./en/products/editor

Interviews with a developer for CYBER SONGMAN.

Message from the lead developer for CYBER SONGMAN.

I'm Michael Wilson from Yamaha Corporation's Research and Development Division.
I was the lead developer for Cyber Songman and I'd like to tell you some of the Voice Bank's history and details.

VOCALOID Voice Banks are based on samples of human singers, obtained by having a singer sing lines from a recording script.
I wrote a new recording script for Yamaha's Cyber Diva Voice Bank (released in February 2015) which was also used for Yamaha's Fukase English Voice Bank (released in January 2016).
Even before Cyber Diva's release I knew there was room to improve the script.
The recording script I made ensured that the samples we recorded had the correct sounds, but it was difficult for the singers to follow.
I wanted to make a script that had the best of all worlds: short, easy to read, and still free from the labeling errors that affected some earlier English Voice Banks.

I was allowed to continue to work on the recording script after Cyber Diva's development was done in March 2014, so I reviewed every diphone and triphone we could represent in English VOCALOID and searched for words that would produce the necessary sounds on first read.
Because English doesn't have a strong connection between the spelling of a word and its pronunciation, and because most English speakers haven't studied phonetic transcription so we can't rely on that to prompt the sounds we need, this is harder than it may seem!
A consonant or vowel may also modify the sound of nearby consonants and vowels, sometimes drastically, so avoiding those effects while keeping the script a reasonable length and still easily readable was an interesting challenge for me.

In July of 2014 the new script was complete. In the end I had to make some compromises, but my personal testing implied that the new script was easier to read while maintaining correctness.
I was ready to test it with a real singer. We chose a singer with a great voice and lots of experience, so I had high hopes for the test.

We did the test recording, and the results were positive.
The singer said that the script was easy to read although still not really like anything you'd normally sing (perhaps the next script can resolve this problem).
Feedback from the recording session let me tune the script a bit more.

I made a test Voice Bank and verified that the results were within my expectations.
Informal listening tests with my coworkers implied that intelligibility was still high and the "singing feeling" of the Voice Bank was good.
It seemed like the project was a tentative success. At the time there were no plans for additional English product recordings so we set the script aside.

Later Cyber Diva and Fukase were released and confirmed that we had raised the bar for English VOCALOID intelligibility.
Product planning wanted to release an American English male Voice Bank to complement our lineup.
Baba-san, who made Cyber Diva's Voice Bank, suggested that if we used the same singer we used for the recording script test then we had a good chance of making a good product, since the test results had been uncommonly good.
I had been working on a few techniques and software tools to help with Voice Bank creation, and while they were still rough prototypes I felt like they were ready to use on a product.
So I said that as long as we could re-record the same singer I would personally make a product-level Voice Bank. And product planning took me up on the offer.

We did another recording with the singer, then I shut myself away in a studio until development was done.
There were a lot of unforeseen challenges in making the Voice Bank, including me coming down with the flu at the end of the development period, but after development, testing, and release checking the Voice Bank was ready.

I was even able to squeeze two additional phonetic symbols into the Voice Bank: [4] and [@l].

[4] is the American English tap-t sound. This is close to but different from the [d] symbol, and is mostly used in place of a syllable-ending [t] which is between two vowels.
For instance, "better" would become [bh e 4] [@r]. It can also be used to soften pronunciation at the end of a phrase.
Some of our third-party licensees also include this symbol in their VOCALOID4 Voice Banks, and I think it's useful for creating songs with an American English accent.

[@l] is a syllabic [l] sound (that's lower-case L).
When we were working on Cyber Diva there was a lot of discussion about what the best vowel was for things like the second syllable of "apple" -- this phoneme helps fill that role.
It's designed to always be followed by an [l] phoneme but it can be used on its own too with varying degrees of success.
Try using it in place of a [V], [U] or [@] in unstressed syllables that end in [l] for best results. For instance, the aforementioned "apple" would become [{ p] [@l l].

The Voice Bank also includes a growl (GWL parameter) that can add a touch of emotion or strain when applied lightly or moderately at the start or end of a word.
When pegged to the max and combined with VOCALOID's Pitch Snap Mode it adds a robotic quality to the voice that may be useful for certain kinds of electronic music.

I feel very fortunate to have been part of this project, and as always I am grateful to my Research Division colleagues for their advice and support, to the development team for their work in testing and productizing the Voice Bank, and to product planning and marketing for their efforts in sales, promotion, naming, and visual design.
There are still many unsolved problems in the field of singing synthesis, and we here at Yamaha are already hard at work on the next steps for VOCALOID. To all of the VOCALOID users, fans, and critics out there, we're listening to your comments. Your feedback is valuable so please continue to put it out there and we'll continue to read it.
I'm sincerely looking forward to hearing what you think about and the music you make with Cyber Songman. Thank you for your interest and support.

Read Developer Interview

Input melody and lyrics! VOCALOID is so easy!

Using the VOCALOID technology, you can create songs on your computer just by inputting lyrics and a melody.
Use the Voice Banks, which are recordings of actual human voices, and the voice singing editing software VOCALOID Editor to include new voices in your music production environment.

VOCALOID4 Operation Guide

Operating Environment

This product cannot be used on a stand-alone basis. Either VOCALOID4 Editor or VOCALOID4 Editor for Cubase must also be used. The OS, CPU, necessary memory and other specifications will depend on the combination of software used. For further details on the operating environment, please refer to the following product page. : /en/products/editor

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